New gas pipeline towards Turkey

Yesterday Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Mehmet Konuk, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Botas Petroleum Pipeline Corporation signed in Ankara a Memorandum of Understanding on constructing an offshore gas pipeline across the Black Sea towards Turkey.

The Memorandum was signed in the presence of Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation and Recep Erdogan, President of the Republic of Turkey. The new gas pipeline will have a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters, with 14 billion cubic meters slated for Turkish consumers (identical amount is being delivered via the Balkan Corridor) and nearly 50 billion cubic meters conveyed to the border between Turkey and Greece, where a delivery point will be arranged.

The Russkaya compressor station being under construction in the Krasnodar Territory will serve as the pipeline starting point.

Running under the Black Sea, the Blue Stream gas pipeline secures annual direct supplies of some 16 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas to Turkish consumers, starting from 2003. In excess of 110 billion cubic meters have been supplied via the gas pipeline since it was put onstream.

The cooperation in the gas sector between Russia and Turkey commenced in 1984 when the Governments of the Republic of Turkey and the USSR signed the Agreement on Natural Gas Supply to Turkey.